Phone Calls

Choose how calls reach the AI Receptionist and when it picks up - every call, when nobody picks up, or when you’re closed - and set its voice, how it answers the phone, and what happens when it cannot finish a call.

Three tabs on the AI Receptionist page cover calls, in the order a call happens:

• How calls reach it - your Apptoto number, and whether clients call it directly or you forward your business number to it.
• When it picks up - every call, when nobody picks up, or when you’re closed, plus your office phone and when it puts a caller through to a person.
• How it sounds - the voice, how it answers the phone, typing sounds, and words it says wrong.

What happens when it cannot help a caller - a written message or a voicemail - is on the Who gets notified tab; see below.

How calls reach it

The receptionist has its own phone number from Apptoto, shown at the top of the tab. Choose one:

• Forward my business number to it - clients keep calling the number they already have, and your phone company sends those calls on to your Apptoto number. Enter that number under Your business number; it is required. To avoid a loop, the receptionist never rings that number and never transfers a caller to it - your phone company would only send the call straight back. See Forwarding Your Business Phone to Apptoto for how.
• Give clients the Apptoto number - put your Apptoto number on your website, cards, and listing. Calls come straight to it, and it can ring your office first.
• Don’t answer calls - the receptionist does not answer calls at all, only texts and email if they are on. You can still call it in Try It Out. In setup this choice is called Decide later.

Your Apptoto numbers, at the bottom of the tab, lists the numbers that reach this receptionist, and where each one forwards when the receptionist is not taking the call - a phone number, the calendar owner’s phone, or nowhere. You add numbers, and choose which ones the receptionist answers, under Settings > Caller IDs. A number whose Answer calls box is unchecked there still shows here, marked as not answering.

If you do not have an Apptoto number yet, the tab says so. Reserve one under Settings > Caller IDs - it is the number your clients dial, or the one your phone company forwards your calls to.

When it picks up

Choose one:

• Every call - the receptionist answers every call that reaches it. If you forward your business line only when nobody answers, or only after hours, this is the one to pick: your phone company has already decided which calls get here, and your phone has already rung.
• When nobody picks up - your office phone rings first.
• When you’re closed - during your office hours calls ring your office phone just as they would without a receptionist; outside them, the receptionist answers.

If you chose Don’t answer calls on the How calls reach it tab, this tab says so and links back to it.

If you use the Soft Phone and are online in a browser, a call to your Apptoto number rings that browser for 20 seconds first. If nobody answers it there, or you click To receptionist, the call carries on to the choice above. With When nobody picks up, the browser has already had its turn, so the receptionist answers without ringing your office phone as well.

Your office phone

Your office phone is the phone your staff answers: what rings first, and where the receptionist puts callers who ask for a person. Leave it blank to use the number your Apptoto number forwards to under Settings > Caller IDs.

If there is no office phone to ring, the tab tells you, and the receptionist answers every call whichever you choose.

Avoid a call loop

Your office phone must be a line that does not forward back to Apptoto. If you forward your business line to your Apptoto number, use a direct line or a mobile number here instead. If the office phone is your business number, the tab warns you, and the receptionist answers every call itself without ringing or transferring to it.

When nobody picks up

An incoming call rings your office phone before the receptionist picks up. Whoever answers hears who is calling and presses any key to take the call. If nobody does that in time, the receptionist takes the call instead.

The dropdown underneath sets how long your phone rings first. Choose from 10 to 30 seconds, labeled with roughly how many rings that is.

Tip

Your phone’s voicemail cannot press a key, so it never steals the call, even if it answers first. That means you can leave your own voicemail set up as it is.

This is the setting to use when you want a person to get first crack at every call and the receptionist to be the safety net. A call the receptionist picks up this way never transfers back to the phone that just did not answer.

If your phone company already forwards only the calls nobody answers, choose Every call instead. Your phone has rung once by then, and ringing it again just makes the caller wait through a second round.

When you’re closed

Under When you’re closed you see your office hours, for example “Mon to Fri 8 AM to 5 PM; Sat, Sun closed”. Click Edit hours to change them, and add holidays or days with different hours under Holidays and special hours. Until you set your own, the receptionist uses Monday to Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM, in your account’s time zone.

Holidays and days with different hours are only in Settings, not in setup. These are your account’s office hours - the same ones on the Messaging > Office Hours tab, used by the outside office hours auto responder. Changing them here changes them there too. They are saved when you click Save.

During office hours, calls ring your office phone and the receptionist stays out of it. Check During office hours, pick up the calls nobody answers to have it take the calls nobody answers, and choose how long your phone rings first.

Outside office hours the receptionist answers straight away. It knows your hours, so it can tell callers when you open. Nobody is there to take a call, so it never transfers one - a caller who needs a person gets a message taken for the office instead.

Putting a caller through to a person

Check Put callers through to your office phone when they ask for a person to let it transfer a caller. Otherwise it offers to have someone call them back.

In Settings, Only put callers through when lets you describe in plain language when a transfer should happen. For example:

Weekdays before 4pm, or anyone who says it’s urgent. Never on Saturdays.

When your rule applies, the call goes to your office phone. Any other time, the receptionist offers to have someone call the caller back. Leave the box blank to transfer whenever a caller asks for a person. When the receptionist is answering because the office is closed, it never transfers.

When the receptionist cannot help a caller

When the receptionist cannot help a caller, it takes a message for you, using the number they called from. Where that message goes is on the Who gets notified tab.

When it can’t help a caller, on that same tab, decides what the message looks like:

• Take a written message - it asks for their name and what they need, then sends you a written message. Nothing is recorded.
• Let them leave a voicemail - it says it is recording a message for the office, then the caller hears a beep and speaks in their own words. You get the recording.

A caller who asks to leave a message gets the same treatment straight away, without the receptionist trying to help first.

Some callers are not asking for anything - they are running late, or their plans have changed. The receptionist writes that down and passes it on, without promising anything on your behalf. It does this even with voicemail on, so a caller who has already told it everything is not asked to say it all again after the beep. The same goes for a caller who just wants someone to call them back.

Either way, the conversation shows up in your Inbox tagged Message taken or Voicemail, and on the Activity tab with the message or the recording length.

What calls cost

Minutes the receptionist is on the line use 2 message credits per started minute. If it transfers a caller to you, the minutes after the transfer are billed at the usual call rate of one credit per started two minutes.

A call somebody at your office answers - because your phone rang first, or because it came in during office hours - uses no receptionist minutes, since the receptionist never picked up. The call itself is billed at that same usual call rate, like any forwarded call.

Voice and greeting

The How it sounds tab holds how the receptionist sounds.

Voice picks how the receptionist sounds. Choose the Apptoto default voice or one of the standard voices. Cloned voices, set up under Settings > Voices, are available on request.

How it answers the phone is the first thing every caller hears. It comes in two parts:

• The opening, shown in grey, is the same on every call: “Thanks for calling Bright Smile Dental. I’m an AI assistant. This call is transcribed and saved so the team can follow up.” It uses the business name on the What it knows tab - click change the business name under the box to get there. If your account records calls, it says “This call is recorded and transcribed so the team can follow up” instead.
• How it ends is the box underneath, and it is yours to write - up to 150 characters, for example “Would you like to book a free assessment, or leave a message for the office?” Leave it blank to end with “How can I help?”

Note

The opening cannot be changed. It tells every caller that they are speaking with an AI and that the call is kept, which some states require. If you need different wording, email support@apptoto.com and we will work it out with you.

Click Hear it beside the voice to hear your greeting spoken in the voice and words currently in the form, before you save them. Click it again (it reads Stop while it plays) to stop. To hear a whole conversation, place a test call in Try It Out.

Greeting callers you know by name

With Greet callers we know by name checked, a caller the receptionist recognizes hears the same greeting with their first name at the start - “Hi Sarah, thanks for calling Bright Smile Dental…” - and the same ending you wrote above. Anyone else hears the ordinary greeting. The grey line under the checkbox shows exactly what they will hear.

A caller is recognized when they are in your contacts, or when they are calling about an appointment you recently messaged them about. With Help with appointments they already have on, a caller with an upcoming appointment is recognized too.

The receptionist does not mention their appointment in the greeting - it waits until they say why they are calling, in case someone else is using their phone. If it cannot find a first name it is happy to say out loud, the caller hears the ordinary greeting instead.

To hear it, open Try It Out, choose Phone call, and pick one of your clients under Calling as.

Typing sounds while looking things up lets callers hear keyboard noise while the receptionist checks your calendar, instead of it saying “let me check that for you”. With it off, it tells the caller what it is doing.

Pronunciations

The voice sometimes says a word wrong - a staff member’s name, your town, a product. Pronunciations, at the bottom of the How it sounds tab, fixes that.

Click Add a word, then fill in two boxes:

• Word - the word the way it is normally spelled, for example “Worcester”.
• Say it like - the word spelled the way it sounds, with capitals on the stressed part, for example “WUSS-ter”. A couple more: “win” for Nguyen, “ZEE-oh-min” for Xeomin.

On calls, the receptionist says the word the way you spelled it out, including in your greetings. Texts, emails, and call transcripts still spell it normally. Capitals do not matter when it matches the word, and it only matches whole words, so “Lee” does not change “Leeds”.

Click the red x beside a row to remove it. Rows with only one box filled in are dropped when you save.

Tip

Save first, then place a test call in Try It Out to hear how the new pronunciations sound. Hear it only says your greeting, so it uses them only for words in the greeting, like your business name.

A typical setup

Setup walks you through all of this the first time. To change it later, in Settings:

1. On How calls reach it, choose how calls get there. If you forward your business line, enter it under Your business number. Reserve an Apptoto number under Settings > Caller IDs if you do not have one yet.
2. On When it picks up, choose when it answers - every call, when nobody picks up, or when you’re closed - and check your hours if you chose those.
3. Check your office phone, using a line that does not forward back to Apptoto, and whether it may put callers through to a person.
4. On Who gets notified, choose what happens when it cannot help - a written message, or a voicemail.
5. On How it sounds, pick a voice and write how your greeting ends, then click Hear it to listen.
6. Add any words the voice says wrong under Pronunciations.
7. Click Save.
8. Forward your business line to your Apptoto number if clients call your published number rather than your Apptoto number.